New poems by Jack Henry

preacher's daughter

 

i once joined a church
to get next to a girl

up until then
my efforts
had been for naught

she still didn’t
turn in my direction,
even when i joined
the choir, wore
the robe, sang off key
and full of might

turns out the preacher’s
daughter stood next
to me on Sunday’s
no rest for the wicked

turns out the preacher’s
daughter was a helluva
time

 

 

acid rain storms

 

i sometimes
wonder if
the cancer
in my chest
is mine or
yours
as i listen to
the wind that
blows
up your skirt &
only brings
acid rain storms
that knock down
shelters
used to house the poor

 

 

road work

 

i’ve had a hundred jobs &
i’ll have a hundred more
before they put away
the spears
& call this war a draw

angels will still linger
on doormats of disrepair
alive in knowing
that respectable people
still step light

the last time i went
to the corner market
two mexican kids
were arguing about baseball
and the proprietor, a
man from instanbul,
just shook his head

i answered an ad from
the weekly flyer, ten days
work digging ditches
along a road out
in the Mojave
it’s pays a hundred bucks
a day and i thought,
why not

 

 

amber waves of grain

 

while in the country
i walked past a meadow
where a sheep herder joyfully
sodomized an ewe w/a mangy
coat and glassy eyes

it reminded me of the government
and their position on the poor
not that the poor have mangy coats
or glassy eyes

although a friend of mine who lives
on skid row up in los angeles
has a glass eye and his coat
has seen better times, he
knows when to run when the
government comes around

 

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